The three things worth keeping
The keepsakes that survive past Christmas are the ones tied to something specific from the trip. The boat name. The canal you cruised. The day something happened.
- The boat name. Hire boats have names: often beautifully traditional ones (Heron, Otter, Mallard) painted on the side. The Canal & River Trust tells first-time hirers that "Your holiday canal boat is most likely to be a narrowboat" (the Trust on hire-boat types). The name becomes a character in your week's stories. Worth recording.
- The canal route. Whether you did a stretch of the Llangollen, an out-and-back on the South Oxford, or a full ring like the Cheshire: the route is what made the holiday that holiday and not just "a week off".
- The date. Cruising dates blur: they become "that summer", "the week after Easter". Pinning it to an actual date gives the memory an anchor.
Keepsake formats that work
Personalised typographic prints
A typographic poster of the boat name, the canal, and the date. Doesn't fill a shelf, looks like editorial art rather than souvenir tat, fits any frame. More on that here →
A photo that's not on Instagram
One properly printed photo from the trip: the lock-flight, the boat moored against autumn trees, the stove glowing on the one cold night. Print it at A4. Put it in a real frame. Better than 200 phone photos in the cloud.
A canal map of the stretch you cruised
The Nicholson's Guide series, or one of the illustrated waterways maps from independent makers: the stretch you cruised in print, hung framed, becomes a sketch of the holiday.
A linen-bound logbook
Slightly old-school but lovely: a small linen logbook recording where you moored each night, what the weather did, who fell in (someone always falls in). Nicer than a phone note.
What to skip
- The fridge magnet from the gift shop at the hire base. It'll end up in a drawer.
- The cartoon-narrowboat tea towel. The actual culture of canals is older and quieter than that.
- Bulk-printed merchandise from the hire company that exists for everyone who hired that month.
- Anything that doesn't tie back to your trip specifically.
A hired boat is named the same way an owned one is, so a hire week ends up at the making her yours stage too. How boats get named explains the traditions behind the name painted on the side of the boat you hired. For someone who owns theirs, the same decision is best gifts for narrowboat owners.
A print of the holiday
Everything above is a way of pinning a week to something specific: a name, a stretch of water, a date. That is also the whole of what a name print holds, which is why it outlasts the fridge magnet. Three lines, no scene, nothing invented about a boat we have never seen.
Written by Craig Fearn, Narrowboat Gifts. Last updated .